But still others can't get past how this young Chinese woman snared the rich, powerful media mogul.

"If Murdoch was just one poor old man, would Wendi Deng stay with him and have his babies...Everything between them is about money," one microblogger wrote.

On the streets of Beijing, local Chinese are giving Mrs. Murdoch the benefit of the doubt.

"I used to think Deng only loves Murdoch's money. But her move yesterday was so fast and was kind of instinct... this may actually be true love!" one young woman said.

Another said, "I admire her courage. She did this out of her obligation and responsibility as a wife. She did it very well."

So, who is Wendi Deng?

She first made waves when she married Murdoch in 1999, shortly after he divorced his wife of more than 30 years, Anna Torv Murdoch Mann. Since then, the couple have had two daughters together, Chloe and Grace, the youngest among his six children.

By Rupert Murdoch's own account in an joint interview with his wife on CCTV's "Dialogue" program just last month, they met at a cocktail party shortly after she graduated with an MBA from Yale and went to work in Hong Kong at Star Television as an intern, a satellite television service he bought in 1993.

By then, his holdings under News Corp. included the Sunday Times, The Australian, News International, the New York Post, the Times of London, 20th Century Fox and Fox Broadcasting. (His acquisition of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team would coincide with their courtship.)

A native of China, she served as his interpreter during a tour in the mainland, he said. On CCTV, Rupert Murdoch recalled the days when he pursued Wendi-- a woman nearly half his age-- and his efforts to get her to marry him.

"I fell in love with her, and I asked her. She said no, and it took a long time to persuade her," he said.

They married after he finalized his divorce from his second wife.

It's been a long road for Deng. She has talked about growing up in a small town in China ("very,very poor"), the daughter of a factory engineer.

Her marriage with Murdoch wasn't her first; she married the man who, with his then-wife, had sponsored her for a student visa in the United States during the late 1980s. She eventually secured a "green card" to stay permanently in the United States, but her first marriage was short-lived.

Not much is known about Deng. She sits on the board of advisers at the Yale School of Management, her alma mater. She is listed as a co-founder for Big Feet Productions and also is co-producer (with Florence Sloan, friend and wife of former MGM CEO Harry Sloan) of "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan," a recent film directed by Wayne Wang ("Joy Luck Club").

But it is as Rupert Murdoch's wife that Wendi is now known.

And as the pie man found ... nothing comes between the slap-down sister and her mister.